| Event: | Umehara ga kimeta |
| Governing Body: | Enterbrain |
| Competition: | Tougeki – Super Battle Opera (SBO 03) |
| Games: | 7 titles including Guilty Gear X2 |
| Year: | 2003 |
| Venue: | Makuhari Messe |
| Location: | Chiba, Japan |
| Date: | 23-march-2003 |
| Competitors: | 5,823 |
| Teams: | 1,941 |
Umehara ga kimeta or Crazy Live Report (Japanese: 電波実況|Denpa Jikkyou) was a high-tension live report that was made in response to a match by leading video game player Daigo Umehara at a national fighting game video tournament in Japan in 2003; it is also used for the subsequent video clip of the actual game report.
In 2007, a video clip of 'Crazy Live Report' was posted on a video-sharing website and became a popular video, receiving millions of views. In addition, 'Crazy Live Report' videos became a standard material for Mashup movies (videos remixed by individuals), and hundreds of Mashup movies using Crazy Live Report as material were posted and shared.
'Crazy Live Report' became notable as a live report of a video fighting game, and is regarded as a great live report in Japan—and 'Crazy Live Report's' characteristic line "Umehara ga kimeta" is known as a Internet meme, even outside Japan.
'Crazy Live Report' was a report by play-by-play person "Gama no abura" on a match between Daigo Umehara, the top gamer of the popular fighting game Guilty Gear X2 at the time, and the then top fighting game tournament in Japan at the time, Tougeki – Super Battle Opera(SBO), held in 2003. The phrase "Umehara ga kimeta" is from Crazy Live Report's most emotional cry.
The fighting game tournament SBO, which was the setting for the Crazy Live Report, was planned by the arcade game magazine, Monthly Arcadia, and organized by Enterbrain, publisher of Arcadia. The SBO'03 was the first tournament and was held at Makuhari Messe, an event facility in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, from March 22 to 23, 2003.[1]
There were seven titles chosen to compete in the SBO'03, including Guilty Gear X2. GUILTY GEAR X2 had a prominent number of participants among all seven titles.1,941 teams from all over Japan entered the competition, and the 32 teams that made it through the preliminary rounds competed in the main competition held at Makuhari Messe. The format of GUILTY GEAR X2 matches was tournament-style, 3-on-3, with teams of three players fighting one by one until one of them lost, and the team with the remaining winner would advance to the next match.
Daigo Umehara, then 22 years old, was already a charismatic player in the 2D fighting world in Japan. The team that Umehara formed with two other well-known players in the Guilty Gear X2 division took first place in the preliminary survey to predict the winning team, more than three times ahead of the second-place team. Umehara also made it through to the main competition of all four of the seven titles he entered in SBO'03, finishing as the individual runner-up in Capcom vs. SNK 2 and the team champion in Super Street Fighter II Turbo.
SBO's play-by-play was performed by "Gama no abura" (23 years old at the time), who started working part-time at a video arcade before he was 20 years old because of his love of video games and because he wanted to play a tournament of his favorite title. He also said that he originally started the tournament because he wanted to participate in it, but that he has become more interested in conveying the greatness of the players and making the event more interesting than in his own success, and that he participates less and less as a player.[2] At the time, the number of arcade game titles being released was declining, but Gama no abura was involved in the launch of the fighting game, believing that if the industry could be boosted by holding a national gaming tournament at the same time, manufacturers would be more willing to create new titles in search of new avenues of activity.
The 'Crazy Live Report' took place in the second round of the main tournament. The team including Umehara lost two of its players to the other team's spearheads, leaving Umehara alone. However, Umehara beat two members of the opposing team, and in the final round of the generals' match, in which the third round was at stake, Umehara won a one-sided victory over his opponent to advance to the third round with a convincing win. The actual situation that took place at that time is later referred to as 'Crazy Live Report'. The full text of the play-by-play is as followsThe team that included Umehara was eliminated in the semifinals, leaving a best-of-four record. At the time, there was no such mechanism as Live streaming, but the tournament was recorded and sold on the DVD "Tougeki SUPER BATTLE DVD TRILOGY-DISC3" released by Enterbrain.
On March 6, 2007, a video titled 『電波実況 「ウメハラがぁっ！！！決めたぁぁーっ！！！(Crazy Live Report "Umehara ga kimeta!!!"』 a 17-second clipped video was posted on the Online video platform NicoNico.[3] For NicoNico, which started as a video sharing service on March 6, 2007, the Crazy Live Report is one of the oldest videos.[4] The commentator's impassioned cries won the hearts of NicoNico users and became popular[5] and the crazy live report exploded in number of views. As of 2024, it has over 3 million views.
Once Crazy Live report videos were posted on NicoNico, a large number of secondary Mashup videos were created by splicing and editing images and audio from the Crazy Live report.
According to IT news site Mynavi News, "ふぃぎゅ@ウメハラ," which forced Crazy live report to sing the theme song of ふぃぎゅ@Mate, an adult game for PCs, as audio material, triggered the Crazy live report Mushup craze in earnest.
On his streaming channel, Umehara was asked by a viewer how he felt about Crazy live report comical upsurge on NicoNico, " I didn't feel bad about it honestly, Although I didn't get what was so funny about it.[6] [7]
Gama no abura has a positive view of Crazy Live Report becoming famous and has officially approved of its use as Mushup material.[8] "There were a lot of comments and stories about that play-by-play, but I heard that there were people who got to know Umehara because of that play-by-play, and that there were people who became interested in fighting games, so I think it was a success in a sense. At the time, I wanted people to understand how great he was, even if it meant making a laughingstock of myself.
'Crazy Live Report' is often regarded as a masterpiece of live reporting, and was described by Inside, a gaming media outlet, as "a great report that not only captures the momentum, but also accurately captures the development of the game.[9] The online information media outlet Netorabo praised the "game jargon-free, easy-to-understand, and emotionally expressive shouting" and the Crazy live report for "making a significant contribution to the resurgence of fighting game popularity.
Esports website Gamer Gamer named Crazy live report the No. 1 best live report in Esports. The site says that Crazy Live report is a great way to convey the excitement of the competition, comparable to announcer Fujio Kariya's famous commentary of the men's team gymnastics final at the 2004 Athens Olympics: "The parabolic line drawn by Moonsault is a bridge to glory". The phrase Crazy Live report is similar to "Bridge to Glory" of the Athens Olympics in that many people memorized the phrase and it has remained in people's memories.[10]
In 2015, on the occasion of the release of the Umehara-themed manga "Umehara FIGHTING GAMERS! 2," a promotional video for the new book was released, narrated in Crazy Live report style by Gama no abura himself.[11] [12] [13]
In 2022, during a Street Fighter V match in the TOPANGA CHAMPIONSHIP, a long-running Japanese league tournament, the MC saw Umehara's strong edge attack and exclaimed, "Umehara ga!!! to which the commentator replied, "Gamenhaji!!" and Crazy Live report was re-enacted. This act became a hot topic on SNS as a modern Crazy Live report.[14]
In 2024, A new song, "Rolling Sobat," was released by the rap crew RainyBlueBell.[15] The song's lyrics are interwoven with Crazy Live report's signature phrase.[16] [17]
In 2011, when Gama no abura arrived in the United States to distribute in Japanese at the Evolution Championship Series, the world's largest fighting game tournament,[18] Gama no abura was interviewed by the local media and, at the interviewer's request, recreated the Crazy Live report The interviewer asked him to reproduce the Crazy Live report.[19]
In 2015, in the final match of the Ultra Street Fighter IV division of the fighting game tournament Stunfest 2015 in France, Umehara showed a one-sided attack, to which the commentator responded in Japanese, "Umehara ga..." and used a meme to play the game.[20] The meme released at Stanfest was included in the official PV for "Umehara FIGHTING GAMERS! 2".
In 2010, Umehara signed a sponsorship deal with an American video game peripheral manufacturer and became a professional gamer who plays video games as a profession.[21] [22] Umehara is considered to be one of the earliest professional gamers in Japan.[23] As of 2024, Umehara is still active in the top scene of the fighting game world, while also working to expand the player population.[24]
Gama no abura is now working as a director of Esports-related activities, including founding an organization that organizes fighting game events, with fewer opportunities to do actual play-by-play work.